Jamal Murray didn’t buy into the excuse game after Nuggets’ loss Wednesday

The Denver Nuggets were trounced by the Minnesota Timberwolves at Ball Arena Wednesday night once again. Minnesota and head coach Chris Finch have shown that they are Denver’s kryptonite, and the Nuggets have a whole lot of trouble trying to deal with Minnesota’s physicality.

After the loss Wednesday, Nuggets head coach Michael Malone said that his team was tired coming off a back-to-back against Oklahoma City that the team had focused on heavily.

Malone shares that he feels the Nuggets were tired tonight “a step slow” said they put a ton of effort into that OKC back to back and he’s asking a ton of his players right now. pic.twitter.com/VL0s0EtDmP

— Jake Shapiro (@Shapalicious) March 13, 2025

For Jamal Murray, who didn’t make a field goal in the first half and shot just 4-for-15 in the game, Wednesday’s loss wasn’t about the team being tired coming off a good win. They just simply needed to play better.

“We can say we’re tired, we can say we’re hurt and banged up,” Murray said postgame. “Everybody’s hurt and banged up.”

A visibly frustrated Murray didn’t specifically say what he and the rest of the team needed to do to actually be better, but rather said that a majority of categories have to be better.

In the previous six games against Minnesota (starting with Game 5 of the 2024 Western Conference Semifinals), Murray has been held to 16 or fewer points four times, while he has shot under 30% from the field in three games.

While most of the team didn’t play well Wednesday, the impact of a guy like Murray not playing well is far more important than a guy like Jalen Pickett not playing well (no disrespect to Pickett, he just plays a smaller role). When he’s unable to get the offense rolling because a player like Nickeil Alexander-Walker is playing extended defense and being physical against him, that hurts the entire team. Yes, Nikola Jokic will always be there and usually get his stats, but Denver can’t rely on him to carry the Nuggets to another title.

If the Nuggets are truly tired, then Michael Malone needs to find a way to restructure his rotations to get the starters fewer minutes here and there as the team gears up for the playoffs. Especially after last season when Malone admitted he ran his players into the ground down the stretch, this team can’t have a repeat of that.

Murray played 37 minutes Wednesday while Jokic played 38. For a game that was never within single digits in the final 18 minutes of action, it seemed like a good time to lessen up the starters’ workload and just get ready for Friday’s game. Instead, Malone played the starting lineup until there was roughly five minutes left and the game was far out of reach.

Murray is right, fatigue excuses just aren’t going to cut it. The NBA Playoffs see an uptick in physicality and and uptick in minutes for starters. While there are no back-to-backs, taking that toll on a player’s body after a full 82-game season is a lot. But every other team has to deal with the same issues. Every team has to play three games in four nights in the regular season.

Whether the solution is conditioning or a change in the rotation, Malone and the Nuggets need to figure it out before the playoffs get here, because right now, the Lakers and the Timberwolves are more physical than Denver, and don’t care about being a bit tired.